


The Good Hermitage

by burglebezzlement



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Architectural Follies, Canadian Shack, F/F, Huddling For Warmth, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, Snow, Snowed In, or rather Tahani's non-Canadian hermit's hut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 14:44:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10026398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement
Summary: It’s not like Eleanor wants to move into the run-down cottage on Tahani’s property. And it's not like Eleanor wants Tahani to get snowed in with her, either.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is effectively a canon-departure AU from roughly S1E9, although it could be read as consistent with the backstory reveal established in S1E13.

“O, the weather outside is frightful,” Tahani says.

That’s just how she says it, too. Like she’s clasping her hands to her chest in the first scene of a musical, Eleanor thinks. It’s just so _Tahani_ , standing in front of Eleanor’s new window and saying stuff like that.

Which is not to say that Tahani’s wrong. Snow is falling outside, in great gobbing flakes that aren’t like anything Eleanor’s seen before. While they watch, the snow starts hitting against the window glass, and Tahani takes an involuntary step backwards. 

The snow started just after Tahani came in, carrying a wide basket full of muffins and scones. Eleanor’s not sure why she came — sure, welcoming Eleanor to the neighborhood, but hasn’t Tahani done that already? And why the scones? Is there some ulterior motive? There has to be. Eleanor’s sure of it.

It’s not like Eleanor _wants_ to move into the run-down cottage on Tahani’s property. True, it’s got running water and a surprisingly nice bathroom and there aren’t any creepy clown paintings, which means it’s 100% better than Good Eleanor’s house in that respect, if not in any others. But still.

“I haven’t been inside a house this small before,” Tahani says, now, looking around herself. “How delightfully cute!”

“You know me, keepin’ it real.” Eleanor sets down the muffins on her tiny, delightfully-cute kitchen table, which is also her kitchen counter because: small.

“So why do you have two houses?” Eleanor asks. Because this is technically Tahani’s house — it’s on her land, on what Tahani calls her estate, out past the tennis courts and all the manicured lawns, out to the point where there are sometimes sheep grazing around the cottage. Sheep who disappear if you get too close to them, blinking out the way Janet does. Eleanor’s not sure what the sheep’s deal is.

Michael called it Tahani’s hovel at first, when suggesting it as a place to stay for Eleanor, before correcting himself and calling it a cottage. Eleanor’s not fooled.

“It’s picturesque,” Tahani says. She pulls one of the battered chairs towards herself and brushes the dust off before she sits down. “Goodness, you’ll have a fun time getting this old place set up!”

“So you had a house here just so you could look at it?”

“Capability Brown and all that,” Tahani says, like that should mean something to Eleanor. “But I’d no idea it was a real house inside. What fun! It’s like a teeny, tiny little tree house!”

Eleanor scrunches her nose. A tree house might be better. At least then she wouldn’t have to hike past all of Tahani’s tennis courts to get into town.

“Well,” Tahani says. She looks out the windows again — still snowing, only the snow seems to be going sideways now. “The weather really is rather dreadful. I suppose I must be going.”

“If you must,” Eleanor says, and then moves forward to try to get Tahani out of her house. _Her_ house. Eleanor’s house. It’s the first thing she’s had in the Good Place that’s actually been _hers_ , not Good Eleanor’s, and she’s going to make it work even if she chokes on dust. Even if it used to be Tahani’s fancy-person house to look at. 

But when Tahani swings the door open, there’s a giant gust of wind that blows a small snowdrift inside before slamming the door shut again.

Tahani looks down at her perfect sundress and her long, lean, and totally bare-to-the-elements legs and her high-heeled sandals. “I can’t get home in this,” she says, and she’s starting to sound just a little bit worried.

Not acceptable. Eleanor can’t have Tahani here, not when she’s — yeah, this isn’t going to happen.

“Janet?”

“Hi there!” 

Janet’s wearing a Norwegian ski sweater in red and white and a pair of fluffy earmuffs. 

“Janet, what the fork is going on?”

“Just a little hiccup with the weather settings,” Janet says, looking unruffled the way only Janet can. “Nothing to worry about!” She blinks, and suddenly there’s two mugs of hot chocolate in her hands. “Here, have these!”

Tahani takes hers eagerly, and Eleanor takes hers suspiciously. “So, this weather —”

“Also, you can’t go outside,” Janet says. “Good luck!”

And then she’s gone, and Michael’s voice is booming out over the neighborhood, telling them that this is _definitely not_ due to the Bad Place freezing over, but also they shouldn’t leave their houses unless they want the snowflakes to freeze the — they shouldn’t go outside.

“So,” Tahani says. “Guess we get to spend a little time together!”

Eleanor smiles, weakly.

* * *

“So you must have had a lot of this in the States,” Tahani says.

It’s an hour later. The screen is only showing Michael’s face on the Welcome Channel, they’ve finished their hot chocolate and most of Tahani’s enormous basket of muffins and scones, and things are starting to get chilly. Which has Eleanor worried, but not as worried as she is about spending this much time with Tahani, who looks cold, and maybe she needs someone to help warm her up and….

Yeah, Eleanor’s not going to think about that.

“A lot of what?” Eleanor asks, instead.

“This weather!” Tahani gestures to the window, where the snow’s either caking on the windows or drifting up against the cottage. “How delicious, to get snowed in by a real snowstorm.”

Eleanor’s made it through a solid hour of Tahani’s best brunch banter, and this is it. This is her breaking point.

“It is not delicious,” she says. “It forking stinks. And I lived in Arizona, remember?”

Tahani moves her lips into that distractingly perfect pout. “I’ve seen some lovely photographs of the Grand Canyon in winter-time.”

“Right. That’s, like, hours away from where I lived.” Eleanor’s not sure how far, because she never went to the Grand Canyon, but she knows it’s not in Phoenix. 

“Oh.” Tahani glances over at the muffin basket, and Eleanor can practically _hear_ her trying to think of another approved topic for getting trapped in a hovel with one of her hangers-on, one of the bad people who really shouldn’t be here.

“I can’t take this,” Eleanor mutters, and she gets up to go dump the dishes in the sink. Chidi will — no, she reminds herself, no more Chidi for the dishes. Maybe she can get Janet to take care of them once the snow stops.

Tahani starts to say something else, but then she’s taken by a violent shiver, her teeth chattering together so loudly Eleanor can’t help but hear them.

“You’re cold,” Eleanor says. She should have realized — she’s wearing jeans and a sweater and _she’s_ getting cold, so of course Tahani must be freezing, with all that bare skin. 

_No, don’t think about that,_ Eleanor tells herself.

“I’m perfectly fine,” Tahani says, but it comes out as “p-p-p-p-perfectly f-f-f-f-fine” which is a hint even Eleanor can pick up on.

“Come on,” Eleanor says. “Upstairs. I’ve got some warm stuff you can borrow.”

Tahani fights it at first, but Eleanor gets her upstairs eventually. The cottage is just four rooms: the kitchen and a small bathroom downstairs, and then a small front room with nothing in it (“a hermitage is intended for meditation and retreat,” Tahani had said during the endless hour of brunch banter, and Eleanor wondered why Tahani hadn’t put Jianyu out there, but hadn’t asked. Jianyu — Jason — is still a sore topic). 

Upstairs, there’s one wide room, under sloping eaves. There’s a rough bedframe with a double mattress under the little window at the far end of the room, and low, built-in cabinets set along the sides of the room.

Eleanor didn’t have much to move from Good Eleanor’s house when she came. Her poster of the package delivery guy (now in the front room). Some clothing. She’s kept wearing Good Eleanor’s clothing — it feels right, somehow.

She digs through the cabinets until she finds sweatpants and a shirt and a hoodie and slipper-socks for Tahani to change into, and then leaves Tahani upstairs to get changed.

Eleanor’s figuring that even Tahani can’t rock a sweatsuit.

She’s wrong. When Tahani comes down the stairs, she looks annoyed, but she also looks gorgeous, even with her long hair spilling out of the hoodie, the sweatpants ending halfway up her calves and her arms sticking out of the hoodie’s sleeves. 

_Forking heck._

“Warmer?” Eleanor asks. 

“Better.” Tahani avoids Eleanor’s eyes as she pulls out one of the chairs. “Thank you.”

Eleanor’s left spinning her wheels. She’s got Tahani in her kitchen and there’s about three feet of snow outside, and she’s got no idea what to do. Offer her food? Good luck on that; there’s almost no food left, now that they’ve eaten the last of Tahani’s muffins and scones.

“Tea,” Eleanor says, because Tahani must like tea, right? She’s invited Eleanor over to her mansion for afternoon tea enough times. “I can make us tea. You’re cold, right? Tea.”

Tahani perks up a little. “I’d be partial to a Lady Grey, if you have it. Earl Grey is always just a trifle overpowering.”

Eleanor rummages through the cabinets, but there’s no tea kettle. No teapot, either. There’s a battered pot, so she fills that up with water from the tap, which is still working, and sets it on her single burner. She digs up a couple cracked mugs, but there’s no tea. No food, either, which Eleanor is starting to worry about. 

“Janet?”

But Janet doesn’t appear.

* * *

Half an hour later, they’ve tried every Janet-summoning incantation Eleanor can think of. _AbracaJanet. Janet, Janet, Janet. Now appearing: Janet! I summon thee, Janet! Janet, we’ve got cookies._ Nothing’s working.

“ _Please_ , Janet,” Tahani says, worry on her face, and Eleanor feels a weird feeling in her chest-region, one she hasn’t felt that often before. Worry, maybe. She’s not going to think about it.

Eleanor’s got a few oranges in her quaint little refrigerator, so she throws some orange peel into the hot water and gives an orange to Tahani and takes an orange herself. The hot orange-peel water tastes _weird_ (do they have pesticides in The Good Place?) but Tahani drinks some anyway, and Eleanor’s glad to see Tahani’s shivering reduce once she’s got the warm drink inside her. No matter how nasty it tastes. 

“Let’s do something,” Tahani says, once they’ve eaten their oranges. “Let’s clean your house.”

“It’s fine,” Eleanor says.

“No, really, it’s the least a neighbor could do,” Tahani says.

They find a cupboard under the stairs with cleaning supplies, and Tahani sets off with a broom and duster and starts raising more cobwebs than Eleanor knew could possibly be in the house. Tahani sweeps like she’s in a cartoon, wide sweeps back and forth, making the dust fly up.

Eleanor looks at her. “You had a maid, didn’t you?”

“She was really more like part of the family,” Tahani says.

She’s got dust streaked down her face, but she’s not shivering anymore.

* * *

When darkness falls outside Eleanor’s cottage, Janet still hasn’t come. The snow is falling, harder now in the light from the windows. They’ve had three more mugs of hot water — no flavoring, just warm water to try to keep them warm.

Eleanor looks over at Tahani, who’s shivering, violently. 

“Come on,” Eleanor says. She gets up and pulls Tahani after her. “Upstairs.”

Tahani doesn’t say anything, which is what really worries Eleanor. She’s gotten used to Tahani’s talking. Maybe it’s mostly brunch banter, with the occasional excursion into what some famous person told her once, but she’s always there, always trying. And — okay, so they’re in The Good Place — Gunnar and Antonio weren’t hurt by that dumpster falling from the sky, were they? 

But then Eleanor hears Tahani’s teeth start chattering again and realizes that she’s not sure. She can’t be sure.

Janet’s not coming. They’re on their own.

“Into the bed,” Eleanor says, pulling the covers down and pushing Tahani down. Tahani doesn’t try to fight, just pulls the covers up over her head and lies there, a shivering lump under a picturesque quilt. 

Eleanor looks through the cupboards and finds another quilt, this one ragged with age. She shakes it out and piles it on the bed.

“Better?”

“Oh, just lovely,” Tahani says, from underneath the quilts, but she’s still shivering and it’s _cold_ , even upstairs. Eleanor’s not shivering herself, not yet, but the temperature keeps dropping. 

_It’s not like Tahani will care,_ Eleanor reminds herself. _It’s not like Tahani even knows about my stupid forking crush._

“Shove over,” she says, her mind made up.

The bed’s narrow and the mattress worn. The covers are musty, and the sheets feel cold against Eleanor’s skin. She is so going to get Janet to completely remake this place.

Tahani's shivering, looking up at the ceiling. “Are you sure?” she asks.

Eleanor nods, and then Tahani moves just a bit, into the center of the bed.

They lie side-by-side at first, Tahani’s body warm at Eleanor’s side, and then Tahani makes a little noise and Eleanor’s moving before she can think about what she’s doing. She turns over, under the weight of the covers, and wraps herself around Tahani, her cheek pressed to Tahani’s shoulder, her right arm around Tahani’s waist.

Tahani shifts, her arm coming around Eleanor, brushing Eleanor’s hair back from her face.

“It’s still cold,” Tahani says.

Eleanor nods her head against Tahani’s shoulder. It’s so close to what Eleanor really wants, she feels like it’s killing her. And if she really were the good person she says she’s trying to be, she wouldn’t let herself enjoy this. 

They lie there, warm together under the covers, listening to the wind howl and moan around the roof-eaves of the cottage.

Tahani’s shivering has finally stilled, and Eleanor can smell her hair now, a fresh smell like apple blossoms or something. Not that Eleanor’s ever smelled apple blossoms, but somehow it seems like the sort of thing Tahani _would_ smell like. She’s just that sort of person.

“This is nice,” Tahani mutters, sleepily, into Eleanor’s hair.

“What?” 

Eleanor tries to sit up, but she’s dragged down, by Tahani’s long arms and by the quilts piled over them.

“I —” Tahani’s perfectly still for a moment, and then she moves back, takes her arm off Eleanor’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean that.”

“You said it,” Eleanor says. And oh, Eleanor wants Tahani to have meant it. Wants there to be something between them, something that can rise above the fact that Eleanor belongs in the Bad Place. The fact that Eleanor’s on sufferance here, in Tahani’s hovel. Cottage. 

Tahani draws her breath like she’s about to speak, and then lets it out in a long sigh. 

“It’s just — being close to someone. I’ve missed this. With, well, with everything around Jianyu. Jason.”

Eleanor’s heart is beating, so hard she thinks Tahani must feel it. She can’t ask, she won’t ask, she —

“Missed being close to someone? Or someone in particular?”

Tahani shuts her eyes, and then opens them. She looks over at Eleanor and then brings her hand up to brush Eleanor’s hair back, and then holds eye contact, not looking away in the dim light from the staircase. 

Eleanor’s perfectly still, holding her breath.

“Someone in particular,” Tahani says, finally, and then it’s like a spell’s been broken, or maybe like one’s been cast. Eleanor’s not sure which of them moves first, but Tahani’s the one who leans in and brushes her lips against Eleanor’s.

Eleanor shifts, wrapping her arms around Tahani and kissing her back. Like she deserves to. Like she’s meant to be here.

Tahani pulls back and looks down at Eleanor, her eyes dark in the light from the stairway. She brushes her hand over Eleanor’s hair, gently, and Eleanor thinks that if she has a heart, this is when it should be breaking.

Tahani’s not shivering now. She leans back down, and Eleanor rises to meet her.


End file.
